Clemens Family Relocates to Europe: Day By Day

September 5 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: Sept. 5. Left for Lucerne 8.50 a.m. [NB 31 TS 3].

Albert L. Wilson wrote from Cherryvale, Kans. to announce that on Feb. 18 his wife and he named their only boy “Mark Twain,” and enclosed a photo [MTP].

September 5 Monday – In Bad Nauheim Sam added a PS to his Sept. 4 letter to Hall. He advised that the cholera quarantine would not stop the shipment of his Tom Sawyer MS, or so the Consul General had advised. He asked Hall to cable him “Sawyer received” c/o Drexel Harjes & Co. in Paris once the MS arrived. He added that Warner was making more than $200 a page on his current position writing the “Editor’s Study,” in Harper’s, Howells’ old post.

September 5 Tuesday – Sam and daughter Clara were at sea on the Spree.

September 5 Wednesday – In Etretat, France Sam added another 4,500 words to his JA manuscript, for an aggregate of 6,000 words for the two days [Sept. 9 to Rogers].

September 6 Tuesday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam. Though the letter is not extant, from Sam’s Sept. 23 reply, some of the substance of Hall’s letter is known. He sent notes, likely from the Mt. Morris Bank for Sam to sign. These were part of the added debt needed to keep Webster & Co. afloat, and to pay for much of the publication costs on a raft of books that Hall chose to publish during the year.

September 6 Wednesday – Sam and daughter Clara were at sea on the Spree. Sam wrote on Sept. 13 to daughter Jean, about Clara’s last night on board:

She had good times on the ship & wasn’t sick, & learned to play a very creditable game of horse-billiards [deck shuffleboard]. She danced till 11 the last night, but took a long afternoon sleep the next afternoon at the Murray Hill to make up for it [MTP].

September 6 Thursday – In Etretat, France, Sam felt burned out after his two-day output for JA. He wrote on Sept. 9 to Rogers, “My head hasn’t been worth a cent since.”

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Note: Sam would see Corbett fight an exhibition in Madison Square Garden and verbally spar with him after the fight

September 7 Thursday – The Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 8, 1893, p.4, “Personal Mention” noted Sam and Clara’s arrival:

Mark Twain and his daughter, Miss Clara L. Clemens, arrived yesterday from Bremen on the Spree.

September 8 Tuesday – From Sept. 1 to 10 the Clemens party spent part of the time traveling through Nuremburg, and part of the time at Heidelberg at their old apartment in the Schloss Hotel. Willis writes, “They stayed a few days in Heidelberg for Livy to show Katy the town she had long admired as a picture hanging on Livy’s wall.

September 9 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

Wed. Sep. 9. Left Lucerne by boat, 9.45 a.m. Left Alpnach in two carriages at 10.45. Lunched at the Lion d’Or, at 1. p.m.; passed through Brienz mid-afternoon; glimpsed a small white peak of the Jungfrau at 6.10; at 6.30 the vast pile was in full view & from then till 7.10 it was richly tinted with pink, the other mountains very dark, nearly black. Meantime, reached Victoria Hotel, Interlaken 6.30 [NB 31 TS 4].

September 9 Friday – In a letter postmarked this day but probably written a day or more before, Susy Clemens wrote from Cassino, Italy to Louise Brownell, disclosing recent family activities:

September 9 Saturday – Sam sent daughter Clara and cousin Jervis Langdon to Elmira. He had written Livy he’d take board and lodging at the Lotos Club, “for economy’s sake,” but first actually moved into “temporary bachelor quarters with his physician and friend Dr. Clarence C. Rice, on East 19th Street.” (Rice’s family was away; by the end of the month Sam took “a cheap room” at The Players Club) [Sept. 7 to Livy; LLMT 268].

September 9 Sunday – In Etretat, France Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers that he’d overdone it.